Throwback Thursday

Not too far of a throwback this week. We're in September 2005 during my first trip back to the USA since moving to France. I spent the very last part of my trip with our friend Sue in California and we went camping in Yosemite for a couple of nights. We took a day-long hike up to Vernal Fall and back after which we rewarded ourselves with a couple glasses of wine at the Ahwahnee hotel.

Wine smoothed out the aches and pains of a day-long hike up steep trails.

Ken and I had been to Yosemite quite a lot while we lived in California, so this was not my first time there. We tent-camped up in the Crane Flat and Tuolumne Meadow campgrounds, stayed in a cabin down in the valley (and woke up to three feet of snow one morning), and went on a day trip or two (a long day from San Francisco). This was, however, the first time I stayed in a tent-cabin in the valley.

We stayed in one of these tent cabins.

Here comes the rain again

Most of today's forecast rain is north of us, but we're expecting scattered showers through the afternoon. I've already used most of the water we collected from the last showers a few days ago, so I'm hoping we get enough to replenish the rain barrels again.

I think this flower looks like a pineapple in drag. Fabulous!

I didn't find the part I wanted for my weed trimmer after going to two of our local hardware stores yesterday. Ken's going out later and will stop at a third, but I'm not hopeful. I'll have to buy the part on the internet, I think.

New vines, part two

Here's a view of the newly planted grape vine parcel nestled in the larger vineyard. This is a morning shot, looking easterly into the sunrise. Our house is not visible; it's hidden by the trees on the left.

In a few years the gap will fill in and the new vine parcel will be indistinguishable from the older ones.

Today is a day for errands. I need gasoline for the lawnmower. Then I want to stop at a local winery and fill up on some red wine. Finally, I need to go to the hardware store to find a replacement spool for my débroussailleuse (weed-whacker/weed-eater/strimmer). One of the plastic tabs that holds it all together snapped last week while I was using it, so I need a whole new spool. I hope I can find the right one.

New vines

This is the larger of the two new vineyard parcels in our neighborhood. This one replaces a plot of older vines that were diseased, the other is all new. The grower who owns this plot is a large producer and employs people to help maintain the vineyards. He and his wife (she's a certified oenologist) make and market their own wines. The smaller plot is owned by a guy who's mostly a one-man operation (along with his wife at certain times of the year) and who sells most of his grapes to a cooperative for the wine making.

I counted about 40 rows of new grape vines in this parcel. You can see how rocky the soil is; good for grapes!

All the vines are grafted on to hearty root stocks, and at this stage in their growth the graft is quite visible (although maybe not in this picture). I think it will be a few years before any grapes are harvested from these new parcels. It will be fun to watch them grow. I'm sure you are curious, but I don't know which varietal this is; I need to ask one day.

Just a little off the side

Remember when I told you that the grape growers use contraptions with spinning blades to trim the grape vines in summer? Callie and I saw one in action yesterday. I didn't have the camera with me, but here's an earlier picture of what the trimmed vines look like next to some that hadn't yet been trimmed.

This is not where we saw the trimmer in action, but you can still see the effect.

We got a little rain yesterday, but I haven't yet been outside to see how much. We're expecting some more today. That'll water the garden and refill our near-empty rain barrels.

High summer

August is vacation month in France. It's the month that, chances are, will be warmer than any other during the year. People head to the beaches in August and hope for the best, especially in the north. Most of the agriculture that goes on around us is in maintenance mode, except for early crops of grains and hay that have been harvested and bailed already. The wine grapes are developed and will begin to ripen in the coming weeks.

The underside of a wild carrot flower head.

The carotte sauvage (wild carrot), called Queen Anne's Lace in English, is flowering profusely all around us. For me, it's a marker of high summer. Our vegetable garden is maturing and we've begun harvesting courgettes (zucchini). Green beans are forming and we have an abundance of green tomatoes that, along with the grapes, will be ripening during the warm days of August. At least, we hope they will be warm.

Queen Anne's Lace thrives among the grape vines in high summer.

Pulvérisation

At several times during the year, we can see the growers plying their rows of grape vines with big sprayers attached to tractors. I think they're spraying to prevent mildiou (mildew and other fungus) from attacking the leaves and vines. The solution used most often is called bouillie bordelaise (Bordeaux mixture) which is made with copper sulfate. You can see a blueish tint on the leaves after the vines have been treated, until rain washes it away. Then it's time to spray again.

Spraying in the vineyards behind our house. We steer clear of the "fog" when walking out there. I used a telephoto lens for this shot.

I'm not sure, but I don't think that other pesticides are used out there, aside from herbicidal treatments to keep the weeds down. Many growers rely on herbicides, but some of the growers around us are "organic" and don't use herbicides at all. They plow and sometimes mow between rows of grape vines to control weeds. I'm sure there are books full of regulations concerning what growers can and can't do in the vineyard and when.